Political Quotes

“I want to express to them my heartfelt thanks for their leadership in bringing this issue before us, and for working to build consensus around this amendment. I strongly support this. In explaining that support, I go a long way back in time, back to 1936. In 1936, we did not have a welfare program at the Federal level in this country. In 1936, we adopted something after the encouragement of FDR that largely provided cash assistance to widows with children. Over the years, from 1936 through World War II and into the 1980s and 1990s, welfare changed. By 1996, when welfare reform was adopted, widows and children were eligible for cash assistance on AFDC, Aid to Families with Dependent Children. A lot of the people receiving AFDC had children. For the most part, they were not widows. For the most part, they had never been married. Despite the best of intentions, what we created after 1936 was a program that encouraged many women to have children, oftentimes at a young age; encouraged men to impregnate them; and encouraged the men to walk away from the children they helped to create as if they had nothing to do with it.”